Homemade Crescent Rolls w/a Twist!

Cheese/Pepperoni Crescent Rolls

For years now I have made the Betty Crocker Traditional Roll Dough and made it into Cresent Rolls, which my immediate and extended family rave about. This year I got creative and put parmesan cheese and pepperoni in them...OMG! Why didn't I think of this sooner. I took some over to the neighbor and they love them too. They taste so good by themselves or with chili or you name it. You won't be able to eat just one :) Here are a few of the step by step pics and the recipe.

And here is some of the finished product with one half gone! :)

3 1/2 -3 3/4 cups flour

1/4 c. sugar

1/4 c. shortening or butter

1 tsp. salt

1 package active dry yeast

1/2 c. very warm water

1/2 c. milk (scalded then cooled)

1 egg

margarine or butter(softened)

about 1/2 c. parmesan cheese(little more or less to your liking)

pepperoni

Mix 2 cups of the flour, the sugar, shortening, salt, and yeast in 2 ½ quart bowl. Add water, milk, and egg. Beat on low speed, scraping bowl frequently, 1 minute. Beat on medium speed, scraping bowl frequently, 1 minute. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased 2 ½ quart bowl; turn greased side up. Cover and let rise in warm place until double, about 1 hr. (Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.)

Punch down dough; roll half of dough into 12 inch circle on floured surface. Spread with margarine or butter, softened (I do this very generously). Sprinkle with parmesan cheese to your liking. Cut into wedges with knife or pizza cutter. Put pepperoni slices on each wedge then roll each one up beginning at rounded edge. Place rolls, with points underneath, on greased cookie sheet; curve slightly. Cover and let rise until double, about 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake until golden brown (my bottoms are usually dark golden brown and tops are lightly golden brown) 12 – 18 min. (I remove them from the hot sheet to cool). Cool slightly and enjoy!

Desire...but where is my energy?

Okay, so I don't have pics to post at the very moment...well, I do...but I don't have the time or energy to type what needs to go with them. I have 4 regular craft projects I am in the middle of but have baking items to put on here too. The cows have been keeping me busy and my boyfriends dad just had open heart surgery 2 days ago. I will try and get a new 'real' post on soon.

Tire Scraper

Well, This was a project of new experience for me. I didn't do the welding (but I can weld) but I did a lot to grind the angle iron before it got put together and I drill the holes in the rubber tire. UM, not something I'm crazy about doing again soon. We have a tire scraper like this we use already but built this one to sell at a farm auction. Drilling through the tractor tire took all the muscles I had, took time, and stunk! but we got it put together and it was great. Another project completed together.

Toy Tractors

Toy Tractor building and refurbishing is actually my boyfriends hobby. When I first moved in(fall of 08) he was pretty firm on not wanting me to touch his tractors as they are delicate, doesn't want unneccessary fingerprints etc. Now that he has seen my creative crafty side and knows I care about his stuff he won't do his own detail painting. He has me do all detail painting and create and print off decals. He often will ask me to help him as he is soldering or doing something else with them. He is teaching me now how to strip them and ready them with casting in half so they will be ready for him to start working on...faster done...faster onto ebay he says. :) So, I am learning another craft!

Wood Shed

Here is the new wood shed we put up Nov/Dec. 08. We drill the holes, set the post together. He did the roof work by himself and I put up all three sides myself. The boards on the side are oak, and wow, you know you've hammered a nail by the time your done with 3 nails...hard to nail through but turned out great.

Walls, Ceiling, and Lights Oh, My!

So, here is one of our first projects together(my boyfriend and I). His garage of 22 years has T1-11 on the outside that is not all good. The inside had nasty moldy brittle cheap paneling with most of the insulation missing behind it, no ceiling and just 3 fluorescent plug in lights. We took off the old paneling. I reinsulated all the walls and we put up wall board that he had gotten free from a local business that gives away used pieces. Then I gave him the gift of lights. I wired 12 lights and 3 outlets and put in a 220 outlet for him all in conduit...obviously not fast enough though...before he started working off the farm I worked part time off the farm only to get home from work one day and have him say "I need you to look at that 220 outlet, I thought I would try and help you out but I don't think I hooked it up right...I got shocked". Well, isn't that what every woman wants to hear when she gets home from work...

so out to the garage I went, and sure enough,

he got his wires crossed!

Now we have a huge Allis Chalmers sitting where all that pile of stuff used to be that is in the pic as the Allis needs $800 worth of parts and he can then fix it, and he has a beautiful place to work on his toy tractors now. We even have a wood stove in there so it is toasty comfy to work out there. What's nice is that he will work on his toy tractors while I work on one of my projects...he actually would prefer I was out there working on one of my projects when he is working on his, it is so wonderful to know that he enjoys having me around when he is in his guy place.

Folding Table

My sixteen yr. old comes to stay with us (we live in PA...he lives in Western NY) and we try and do something together when he comes. We made this awesome folding table out of our larch boards. He is so proud of it and keeps it in his bedroom. He says he is saving it for his own home

(he stays with his dad for now).
He already has a project picked out for this spring break when he comes down - a folding stool. He is bringing a metal/wood one that his dad has and we will take measurements and such off of that to create a fully wooden folding stool. It feels good to be able to share a talent with one of my children that will make a difference for years to come, not only with memories he will have of the time we had together during these projects but for a child that deals with ADD and Depression it helps him to have these completed projects to look upon and know that he did it(with mom's guidance...but he did most of the work himself).

Wire Spool Table

As this wooden spool was turning as we put up the high tensil wire for the new milk cow pasture, my mind was turning too...how could this empty spool be used. We didn't have a back porch table! AND my boyfriend had kept chunks of drywall from the kitchen that his ex-wife of 14 yrs. had carefully painted hearts/birds on and didn't have the heart to through them away. I asked him if I could utilize them for our back porch table and showed him my idea. I carfully cut them out and put a protective coating on them. I utilized more of the dowels from our neighbor for the stems(check out the swings) and also utilized lathe boards that are piled up for some creative use for the leaves. I had sanded the spool, coated it with polyurethane, used IH Case colors on the top washers and bolts and carefully nailed on my flowers. So the table on the back porch represents love of past and love of present in a beautiful piece of porch furniture.

Dollar Store Wedding Glasses? (older project)

I needed glasses for the bride and groom(my son) and the wedding party but was on a tight budget. I found these at the local Dollar General for $1 each. For the bride and groom I drew with pencil on the glass a design I wanted etched and used a diamond coated tip on the dremel and this is what they looked like when I was done, along the bottom of the glass is a leafy vine that goes clear around the base of the glass.

Iron On Quilt Hanging (older project)

Here is a project I made about 4 years ago. I co-worker at the college I worked at showed me how to do quilt hanging by just ironing on the material. I have to look to see what the stuff is that I used for ironing on the material but for now here is a picture of it. I also have been dabbling in quilt paper piecing and absolutely love it. I will have to post pics of what I have done so far with that and I will post my quilt blocks so far. I am making an 8 point star quilt. I also make quilows and

will post something on that soon too.

Farm Fresh Blackberry Jam!

Being my first year here with my boyfriend I was overjoyed to find that we have oodles and oodles of blackberries, black raspberries, and elderberries. I had to be very faithful though after milking every morning or just before a hard rain to go berry picking...about 1-2 hrs. every other day to everyday. I made homemade jam from our blackberries and black raspberries.

I made more seedless jam then regular as my boyfriend struggles with diverticulitis(spelling). It made jam production take a lot longer but so joyful to present to him something he loves so much. I was stunned to find that it was the first time in the 22 years he has owned the farm that he was able to enjoy the berries in any way, shape, or form.

The recipe is below the pics.

with seeds...

without seeds!

Jam Recipe

8 cups(or 4 pints) of berries

5 cups of sugar

Combine both in large pot and bring to boil over high heat stirring frequently. Boil uncovered about 25 min.(this is a smart thing to do-follow the time, and do just one batch at a time - I made the mistake of trying to make 2 batches at one time and doubling the time...didn't work, didn't set). Poor into jars immediately and either seal with wax, can, or freeze.

I chose to freeze mine. I used the canner for our garden treasures...spaghetti sauce, salsa, hot peppers. I also froze green tomato jam and made refridgerator pickles. Whew! Summer/fall was busy, but mmm mmm good!

Marble board/Game of Aggrevation

My boyfriend's dad made us a dark stained marble board months ago and we have had so much fun playing with friends that we decided to make a board for them too. The pics I took of the process of cutting, sawing, sanding, and drilling I took with my cell phone and even though most of them sent to my email and I have them on the computer they are not uploading correctly for me onto this...so here are the finished pics. I woodburned designs into some of the marble holes and stained them a little darker to show special marble places.

I cut them with the table saw, cut out a part of each board(bottom of top board and top of bottom board) in the center so that they would fit together. I used dad Moyer's pattern to draw on where I would drill the holes, drilled them first with a 15/64" bit then a 1/2" bit then the final 5/8" bit. Sanded all with my Christmas present...a Skil palm sander with 50 grit paper then 120. I used the dremel with a sanding bit to carefully sand the holes. Then used my other Christmas present...a woodburner, and had fun with some of the marble spots, and then stained them also before I used a natural stain on the whole thing. I bought my shooter marbles and die from the local Ben Franklin.